Hello everyone!🌱
The nature woke up and started to give us colors that pleases our eyes. I am so happy to see all this colors and species growing from the soil and sharing their beauty with us.
Just two weeks ago the forest carpet was dominated with Spring crocus and now the Wood Anemone (Anemone nemorosa L.) takes the place almost all for herself.They are all over the forest. The white flower look so cute and yet so fragile.
But, there is another species that follow this one or rather to say grow next to it but in smaller population.
The scientific name is Corydalis bulbosa (L.) and what is very interesting for me is the english name I found in a book for this species and it is Bird in a bush. The purple color of the flowers are so pretty and they can also be white.
With every day the forest get greener and greener. Exploring the forest in spring gives us so much to see. The insects started to fly around, birds are more active.
Also there are other animals that started to move and one of them is this spotted salamander that Dominik noticed, he was planning to hide between leafs.
These photos were taken in Park Maksimir forest where are lakes and also the animals that follow. These ducks enjoyed the sunny and pretty windy day.
There were also a lot of turtles. The ones that caught our eyes are these two.
The bigger turtle looks like it guards the smaller one. They just chill on the sun living their life to the fullest.
The black birds started to show looking for food.
Walking through the park was quite refreshing. Watching everything come to life in spring is one of my favorite parts in life.
On the photo below you can see the waves on the lake as the wind was blowing. I am sure that the ducks had fun on this waves.😂
The next group of flowers that we spotted were the species known as Spotted deadnettle ( Lamium maculatum L.).
They have interesting purple flowers and there is a bunch of them on each one.
The next one species that we took a photo is a Dandelion ( Taraxacum officinale F.H.Wigg.). This yellow flower gives warm colors to the forest and its shape reminds me of a sun.
These group of flowers are Wood Violet. These flowers are very small but have really interesting shape. They come in groups in brighter parts of woods and forest edges.
Tuberosum Comfrey ( Symphytum tuberosum L.) is a species that is protected in Croatia. They don't have very impressive color but this species have this beautiful hanging flowers.
The Common Lungwort is showing us all palette of colors he have, from the pink to purple.
Beautiful white flowers belong to Wild cherry ( Prunus avium L.). This species is common in these areas. Before many years when people didn't think very much about biodiversity they would often cut these species in forest because of quality of the wood, but today the people that work in forestry are trying to save all these trees and trying to introduce this species in forest by natural processes. The biggest role in spreading this species are birds that can transport the seed for kilometers.
On the photo below you can see is European silver fir. It is very mystic to find the small plant here in this pretty low altitudes. I would say that these one is old for couple of years but they have a ability to live in this state for very long time even hundred years. It is because the plant is waiting for better light conditions to grow, since it is in high forests of oak and common hornbeam.
As you can see on photos some species started to grow flowers and leafs really hoping that there wouldn't be so much cold days, only the weather is not so promising year after year. Last year there was a snow in middle of April, just imagine kind of shock the plants and animals must endure and how much energy they lose because of this.
On this photo are baby leafs of common hornbeam.
The pink plant on the photo is a parasitic plant that don't have chlorophyll. That means that this species need another plant to grow and spread their seeds and also they grow in shadow. It parasitise at the root of various tree species (oak, hornbeam etc.). The name is Toothwort ( Lathrea squamaria L.)
Now is actually raining here in this area around Zagreb, finally. I hope that the nature will refresh to the fullest since it was very arid.
That is all for this post and I hope you like it and saw something new.
Enjoy your day! 🌳🌺
All photos were taken by Ana i Dominik.
